Okay, I admit it. While most of the Chicago metropolitan area literally shut down yesterday afternoon to watch the Bears face off with the dreaded (and dreadful, I'm told) Green Bay Packers, I was snuggled up on the couch with Manny watching the Australian Open.
Zillions of chickens in the Midwest were running around without their wings (it's taken me years to figure out that there's nothing particularly special about the chickens raised in Buffalo), thousands of humans in the Midwest were running around without their brains (how else does one explain sitting outside when it's one hundred degrees below zero just to watch a bunch of oversized men push each other around), and I don't even care enough to refresh my memory and find out what a line of scrimmage is. In my mind, the frigid football spectacle made a stadium full of sweaty, drunken Aussies look downright intelligent.
Sure, I'm disappointed about the Bears' loss, but I'm even more disappointed that the New York Jets lost as well, crushing my dreams of a Superbowl which could indeed have been a metaphor for my own inner conflicts. (Who else can turn the Superbowl into something that's "all about me?") It's an even fifty-fifty now, the portions of my life that I've spent living in Chicago and New York. New York is where I was raised; Chicago is where I've spent all of my adult life, raising others but still trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up.
New York and Chicago, my yin and yang, although I'm not sure which is which. Like everybody, I have my dark and passive yin moments, balanced by the occasional brightness and strength of yang. The energy of two great cities pulses through my veins, and I like to think I've absorbed the best of both. I'm edgy and I'm laid back, I'm loud and, sometimes, painfully quiet. I'm a Mets fan and I'm a Cubs fan, and, to the extent I can care about football, I would have liked to see both the Jets and the Bears make it to the Superbowl. Doesn't make me all that different from television and advertising executives, I suppose.
On Superbowl Sunday, my yin and yang will join forces, and I will be rooting against both teams -- all the guys who dashed my hopes of throwing the greatest Superbowl party ever. I'll say a prayer for all the flightless chickens as I nibble on their wings, and I'll put in a good word for next year for the two great cities that have shaped me.
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